TYLER MIGHT GET his mojo back yet. But right now, he is the greatest liability on our trip. We haven’t reached Hovenweep yet and there are still three long days of hard riding left. At our current pace, every kid will have to ride nine hours a day to cover the 230 miles between us and the Grand Canyon.

At the pullout where we stopped to take pictures, Tyler boards the van while everyone­ else rides into the sunset. Water evaporates from the fields, making the air smell sweet and manurey. I feel a pang of sadness knowing what Tyler is missing. Even Townsend’s 12-year-old son, Gregory, is loving this. He’s done most of the ride and now cruises up front. As we finally roll into the Hovenweep Campground, it’s so dark that coach Reynolds has to light our way with his high beams. It’s cold. And the wind makes the night feel violent. Several times, I am spooked awake by thought that we are so far out here, that we have so far to go, and that the wind could drive the boys crazy. For a brief spell just before sunrise, the wind dies. But by the time we get up it’s screaming again at 40 miles per hour.

We pull ourselves out of bed, knowing that today’s ride, to Mitten View Campground in Monument Valley, Arizona, spans 82 miles. A second assistant coach, Robert Gaston, estimates that our pace, with the gusts, will be 3 miles per hour. I’m no mathematician. But that should put us in Mitten View—tomorrow.

It takes a herculean effort just to stand up, balance, and pedal forward. The stronger riders—Aaron, Colton, Alexis, Austin, James, Duncan, me—manage, although I am thinking, What kind of person makes kids ride into a maelstrom? Tyler and Allen fall so far behind that Gaston finally shouts, “Hold up!” Stuffing our faces into our jerseys to avoid the red dirt swirling off the Navajo reservation, we wait, until finally Tyler creeps into view. Behind him comes Allen—the kid who’s only ridden five times before. I can’t believe it, but he’s smiling. We huddle together, wishing that the wind would die long enough for us to keep pedaling. But when the sag wagon rolls up we load our bikes and drive to the campground.

Yet the sites are closed for construction. Townsend backtracks and finally finds a state park several miles in the direction we came from. Everyone is exhausted and ­hungry. Now, retracing our steps feels demoralizing. From the back of the van, I hear a fight starting. The boys are speaking low, and I can barely make out their words over the hum of the road, but it sounds like:

Isaiah: “What are you gonna do about it, Duncan?”

Out of nowhere, cracks appear in Duncan’s normally placid persona. His body stills, but for a slight tremor.

Duncan: “You don’t want to know.”

Now Alexis bristles. “Don’t mess with my homeboy, cowboy.”

Duncan: “Shut it, Alexis.”

Isaiah: “Suck it, Duncan.”

Townsend steers us down the winding road to Goosenecks State Park. But the evening’s trouble has just started.

Goosenecks, it turns out, is more parking lot than park. Bits of toilet paper whip from sagebrush then fly into the San Juan River Canyon. Pulling the rig onto a gravel pad, Townsend tells the kids to grab the giant tents and work together to set them up. The boys try but the stakes won’t penetrate the ground and the wind grabs the tents and tries to launch them skyward. Every so often screams of frustrated hostility erupt (Grab it, idiot! Back off, dick!) as the sun falls and the gusts continue: Now the boys are fighting the tents in the cold and dark. They keep trying, until finally, Duncan yells at Alexis, who screams back, then grabs the nearest projectile—a full, 20-ounce water bottle—and hucks it at Duncan.

It lands against the trailer with a crack. From inside, Townsend lunges out. But Alexis is already running and screaming and crying at the same time. Townsend chases, following him toward the canyon. When Townsend shouts again, Alexis stops. But shouts, “Fuck you! Don’t touch me!” and takes off again. Beyond this lot, the canyon wall plunges 1,000 feet to the San Juan River. Townsend screams, “No!” Alexis keeps sprinting. Seconds later, he drops.

Not off the edge. But down, onto the ground. He is at the edge. But he will not let Townsend near him. “I said stay away!” he screams. For Alexis, who has kept his cool over 500 miles, the fight with Duncan shows that he has months or years to go before he can transcend the pain that brought him to Ridge View. Townsend sits on a low rock wall at the edge of the canyon and after several tense minutes, Alexis tunnels through the wind, sits down a few feet from Townsend, and listens. Later Townsend will say that, for the first time in the months that he has known the young man, he discovers that Alexis’s dad beat him.

How remarkable, thinks Townsend—the similarities between him and this kid.